History degree - how do you narrow the list

[HotFlowers]

Dd is just finishing year 12. She is keen to study History at uni, followed by maybe going on to study Law, been predicted AAB.

We live in East London, none of the family have attended uni.

She has narrowed her list of possible uni’s by the following;

Course content
Top 30 uni
Top 30 course
Campus uni very near a City
Likelihood of getting in (knocked out Durham and Bristol)
3 hr drive from home. Although the first 3 on the list are actually 3.5hrs-4hrs away!!

She has been attending virtual open days and has liked them all so far....

Do we need to go visit all the Uni’s, happy to just not sure how a closed uni will give her much idea...

List currently;
Exeter
Leeds
York

Birmingham
Nottingham
Southampton

Loughborough
UEA

Any we are missing, is visiting them all now the way forward?

Any help or guidance appreciated.

Talking of trains, the trains to Birmingham are often silly cheap. £7 from MK. No idea why!

@missminimum thank you, I think UEA will be a good back up as the required grades do seem to be a bit lower. She’s thinking Southampton, Birmingham, Nottingham if she still likes look of courses. UEA as back up.... with one of the aspirational (grade wise) unis; York, Exeter, Leeds.... seems most sensible.

@okiedokieme thank you, I will pm you in the next few days.

@Piggywaspushed good point re the travel costs, Dd will have a look at trains and mega bus costs

@RoobyMyrtle I think Nottingham is dd’s favourite at the moment

Southampton is worth a very careful look - they have lots of options (assuming they don't do away with loads of modules due to the poor finances for universities at the moment - I mean generally rather than Southampton specifically). I was having a look at Nottingham today which looks really good but asks for AAA for some of the history courses. My ds is also considering Leeds and York but may not work hard enough to get the grades so he is also looking at a slightly "lower" tier of universities with BBB offers - also ancient history seems to be slightly easier to get on and I'd guess that once you are there you could transfer, or do modules in other eras.

The ones on his "apsirational" shortlist are Leeds, York, Warwick, Leicester and Cardiff.

Others include Loughborough, Keele, UEA, Essex, Salford and Southampton.

sticking to those who were universities pre 1992 is a good idea agree

As for Exeter and the so-called rape culture, I'd also have concerns around Warwick as they handed incidents very badly, I'd want to know their processes have been tidied up a lot.

I agree with Xenia that you don't necessarily need to visit the uni, but I do think you need to have visited the city it's in (or be happy with a campus environment if eg you go to Warwick or Keele).

I disagree that Exeter uni hasn't been proactive with its open days, I have been following their Discover pages on Facebook and they've had loads going on.

PS people took the mickey out of a Northern accent in...Nottingham?

Nottingham is north for me (I know it's East Midlands but it's not far from Sheffield).

Yes, but quite a lot of Nottingham students travel up form the south so I guess they can form a bubble. I didn't notice this at Nottingham myself but I was doing a PGCE so a slightly different demographic. People were from everywhere as NU had a really good reputation for teacher training, in the days when it was competitive!

I did history at Leeds. fab uni, fab city, fab campus and social life. Best 3 years. Highly recommend

@puffinkoala

PS people took the mickey out of a Northern accent in...Nottingham?

Nottingham is north for me (I know it's East Midlands but it's not far from Sheffield).

Yes it was people from the South who had come to Nottingham to study. They had a lot more disposable income than she did and lavishly partied hard most nights. That was just Cripps Hall though, it's notorious for it. Others were more down to earth.

Re Nottingham, do you have to be catered if you want to be on campus?

Grandson is waiting for results day. He initially had AAA offer from Leeds for history, but took part in an online Access scheme over the summer and had the offer reduced. ( His school is not highly rated, so contextual I suppose) Durham couldn't give a history place but offered an alternative, again lower. Edinburgh asked less than 3 As right from the start. He is excited to be going to Leeds, he is predicted AAA but nice to have some leeway! Also, he will get a bursary due to low parental income.

@HotFlowers

Re Nottingham, do you have to be catered if you want to be on campus?

There's a self catered block - Broadgate -that's just across the road the road from the campus.

May I echo some of what Xenia said. If she wants to go into Law, university matters! The course matters less. Far less. No law recruiter will ask you about your views on the Russian Revolution or the Battle of Hastings. They simply don’t care. What they will want is how an applicant can apply themselves to Law and whether they can make a success if that career. History is a means to an end. So always look at university first, whether it’s preferred by law recruiters, and course second.

Just to put this in context. Around 6000 training contracts for solicitors are available each year. Around 400 plus pupillages for becoming a barrister. 35% of pupillages go to Oxbridge grads. 50% of trainee solicitors are not law grads. This country produces around 19,000 law grads each year. Add to these all the non law grads who want training contracts after doing the conversion course and you can see the problem. Competition is fierce. That’s why the history course matters least but the university matters a lot. Plus those A level grades! AAA is best for law. Or better.

I agree University matters but so does the city and the course content. If she is miserable she won't do well in course content and she won't be competitive post uni.

I did a BA and an MA at two universities that couldn't be more different. If I had done a BA at the MA uni I would have been really unhappy. The city wasn't for me at all, neither was the history content or teaching, I really struggled to get a lecturer who was on my wavelength and this affected my grades.

I personally wouldn't move to a city for uni I'd never visited! Can she go by herself for a day trip on the train?

The core content will be online for prospective students to look at as well as options. For RG universities, and plenty of others, these will be numerous. I would have thought that most students could find what they would like to study and I firmly believe university should be about stretching your intellect. Not everything will be easy and I don’t believe people who want to be lawyers won’t be able to fly through a History degree and enjoy the options they choose. I’m sure there are plenty of fantastic options at all these universities.

Given the number of city lawyers and barristers who went to Oxbridge, there’s a big clue there as to what type of history degree/university that recruiters like. So going on your own instincts away from a “classic” history degree might not pay off if the university isn’t top drawer. Obviously less than a 2:1 won’t cut it but frankly anyone getting below this wouldn’t make a lawyer in this day and age. It’s all about placing yourself well against stellar competition and a degree you loved from anytown university will not be a great start even if it’s a first. Unfortunately the competition has a first from Durham and UCL.

I do agree that city vs smaller town vs middle of nowhere is important but if the OP’s DD has narrowed it down to Nottingham, Leeds or Southampton, possibly leaning toward Nottingham, I’d say city it is!

Given the number of city lawyers and barristers who went to Oxbridge, there’s a big clue there as to what type of history degree/university that recruiters like.

You said yourself that the university is important, so it might just as well be the label on the tin they are going for, with scant regard for the actual contents...

@HotFlowers

Re Nottingham, do you have to be catered if you want to be on campus?

This was one of the reasons that DD discounted Nottingham. She most definitely did not want catered.

No it’s not. They know the rigour of certain courses and appreciate the intellect required to get on them. As the recruitment is dominated by RG universities, and then a sub set of them, you will find they have the highest entry requirements.

I know some recruiters don’t look at actual university attended but that doesn’t seem to alter the results of university attended by trainees very much. The talent is spotted.

Regional universities are more likely to feed local lawyers. The city takes its pick of the very best because of the huge number of applicants. For law I do believe it’s best to put yourself in the best position possible and get in plenty of work experience too/internships if you can. The opposition will.

Lots of people do think catered in halls is a good way to make a wide circle of friends.

My0My is right about law (and see my link above about which universities send students to good law firms which by the way is based on numbers so universities with lots of graduates (and are also good places and hard to get in) do well and it is slightly unfair on universities which many fewer students like St Andrews but certainly gives a very accurate picture).

Some law firms are trying to do some of their recruitment "institution blind" as long as you have very good exam results (minimum AAB A levels in decent subjects and a 2/1 is the minimum threshold). Mind you the civil service apparently tried institution blind application and found it recruited a higher % from Oxbridge than before as those were the best candidates and if you stripped out some recruiters' and Oxbridge bias you got a fairer result - i.e. more from Oxbridge. Complex world.

If another subject at a very good university takes people with slightly lower grades then for some careers including law go for the better regarded institution.

York isn't a busy city. Students often end up going to Leeds for a night out (and it's a short train ride). But York itself is very tiny and chocolate-box; it's not wild clubbing or bustling urban life.

(FWIW I think York history is fantastic and I would totally recommend it, but there you go.)

I'd say as well as course content, she should try to get a sense of the department's overall 'slant' (some will have a more obvious slant than others). Eg., do lots of the faculty seem to be working on race or Marxism or gender or whatever? Do they sound as if they do a lot of archaeological cross-over, or are they more likely to work together with the English department? All of that can really affect both the feel of the department and the kind of work you do. Two universities might both offer a course on 'history 1066-1550' or 'the industrial revolution' but they might teach it very differently.

If what you love is material culture and people's ordinary lives in history, you might feel a bit out of place in a department where there's a strong bias towards political history, or if you hate using 'theory' (feminism/queer theory/etc etc) you might get a bit bored if that's a large part of the faculty's interests. Etc.

York is very bustling , though : it is definitely 'busy'(rammed when it's tourist season) but, yes, not clubby. Great if you prefer pubs to nightclubs which many do! Even young people. I never went to Leeds when I was at York but I did unbeknownst to me at the time 'meet' my DH when he came form York to Leeds to watch the Bruno fight and attend the legendary Vanbrugh bop.

It would appear Mr Johnson and co fancy a few day trips to York..

I meant from Leeds to York there..

I really wouldn't say it's rammed in tourist season (but then I lived in a touristy place before I lived in York). I grant the Shambles can be. I would say it's pretty quiet - even in summer, you can wander down little lanes and feel very peaceful.

I would have loved it as a student, though, so perhaps I'm being unfair to assume a student wouldn't find it busy enough!

www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities-2019

This would be useful reading for you/DD

@SarahAndQuack

I really wouldn't say it's rammed in tourist season (but then I lived in a touristy place before I lived in York). I grant the Shambles can be. I would say it's pretty quiet - even in summer, you can wander down little lanes and feel very peaceful.

I would have loved it as a student, though, so perhaps I'm being unfair to assume a student wouldn't find it busy enough!

I live an hour away from York and have visited frequently. Apart from my visit in January just before lockdown it has always been busy. A midweek day in January is the quietest I have ever seen it. We didn't even need to queue for Betty's.

I worked in a café and there were queues out the door every day but there is also beautiful peace and quiet and glorious countryside if one is lucky enough to be able to get to it. Same for Leeds : the glorious Dales, Bronte country etc.

I loved being a student in York and I am from a very big city.

The only sleepy place on OP's list is Loughborough, I'd say?